


The People Left Behind

by Kunabee



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, But with a happy ending, Gen, Sorry Not Sorry, all of my one shots are going to be about frisk or chara, but boy! frisk is a trooper, but it does, determination huh?, i don't know why undertale angst keeps me up so often, it's just how it is, one HECK of a drug, where i have to write it so i can SLEEP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23574616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunabee/pseuds/Kunabee
Summary: Frisk knows there's not actually onlyoneperson left underground.
Relationships: Flowey & Frisk (Undertale), Frisk (Undertale) & The Snowman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The People Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> y'know, everyone forgets the snowman

Monsters had been freed for three years, and every six months Frisk returned to the Underground. When people asked, they claimed it was because of Flowey. Nobody understood their attachment to the flower - nobody except for Chara - but they didn't question it.

And sure, Frisk visited Flowey. They brought him a slice of Toriel's cinnamon-butterscotch pie and new games for his game system every time and listened as he yelled at them. He cried, sometimes, too. When he cried, Frisk just sat there and ate their slice of cinnamon-butterscotch pie and didn't ask him to come up to the surface with them, although he knew the option was open.

But then they went into Snowdin. They went to the lonely little cliff with the lonely little snowman and gave him back a piece of himself before taking a new one. They showed him post cards and told him stories and asked him how he was doing.

"The same," he'd say, and ask about something in the postcards or photographs they'd bring.

Frisk called it wanderlust, but it was really because of the one monster stuck in place. Sure, they could bring a piece of the magical snow with them and keep it cold if they were very careful - and they were always very careful, in _everything_ they did - but to bring the entire snowman to the surface...

"If you dismantled me and rebuilt me, I wouldn't be the same. And even though... I'd just be stuck in a new place. Maybe melt. No, I'm okay here."

One time, they came down to find Flowey with the snowman, showing him one of his games. Frisk watched, for a little while, before very loudly and deliberately crunching the snow and pretending like they hadn't watched at all.

"This is more than I'd ever dreamed of," said the snowman the first time, and even though his eyes were dull black dots Frisk swore they could see them sparkling.

"It's so incredible!" said the snowman the second time.

"You don't have to keep doing this, you know," he said the third time.

"You're really too nice, Frisk," he said the fourth time.

And no, they never had to do it, but they wanted to. They wanted to spend a couple of hours in their mittens and heavy coat showing him all the things in the world. If they could take all of him, if they could show him everything...

But the snowman was fine. He promised he was. And he had Flowey, too. Even if Flowey would never admit it and the snowman never showed it, they both knew they were trapped.

But they weren't really, were they? If the snowman would let Frisk tell people about him... If Flowey would just come to the surface...

Frisk was good at not pushing, though. So they just came down to the underground - to visit Flowey every three months and the snowman every six, always with stories and games and butterscotch-cinnamon pie and photographs.

They broke the pattern, though, on the celebration of Freedom Day, three years later. They ran to the mountain, and up the mountain, and through the caverns until eventually they came to Snowdin without a heavy coat and without their mittens or their backpack filled with pictures and games and stories. They gasped as they collapsed next to the snowman and their tears froze on their face.

"I can't do this!" they gasped, as they hit the snow and felt it turn their skin numb. "I can't do this! Not anymore!"

And they gasped and sobbed it all out, without every explaining what it was they couldn't do.

That was okay.

The snowman was a good listener.

Flowey came when they were quiet, just sitting next to the snowman in silence, listening to the sounds of the snowy forest underground. Permanent winter.

"Hey, Frisk?" Flowey said, in a small, small voice. "...I want to come up to the surface."

"No, you don't," they said in a ragged voice, hugging him close. "It _hurts_ up there. My sins crawl on my back every _day_."

And the snowman wished very hard, with all of his heart, that he could just _hug_ the human that freed the Underground, that was filled with all kinds of regrets he could never understand. He wished so, so hard, harder than he'd even wished to see the world.

Magic is funny.

It can do incredible things.

Branches reached out and then it was hands that held Frisk. Cold snow was smooth, and solid, and still cold but not-quite-snow anymore. Because snow would melt, but magic would not.

When Freedom Day was over and Toriel was sick with worry, three people came out of the Underground. A forgotten monster, a human who had lived too long, and a SOULless flower. They went home. The monster had a milkshake and the human and the flower had hot cocoa and Frisk thought,

 _it'll be okay. I told you, Chara_.

And Chara thought,

_and I told **you** , Frisk. You can do it._

And even though things were still hard and scary, a monster started traveling the world and a flower started growing a SOUL and a human

stayed

determined.

**Author's Note:**

> two undertale one-shots in the same day? gasp, can it be?
> 
> this is the third story i've accomplished today i hope it bodes well. maybe i can actually work on all of my other projects instead of writing SHORT STORIES
> 
> hecc


End file.
